Teachers demonstrate during mediation talks

VISTA  Vista teachers demonstrated in front of the school district office Monday morning to show support for union negotiators, who met with administrators for mediation talks.

The Vista Unified School District in December declared an impasse in contract negotiations with the Vista Teachers Association, and yesterday’s meeting at the district office, at 1234 Arcadia Ave., was the first one scheduled with a state mediator.

Several hundred teachers gathered outside the closed-door talks to offer their backing for the union’s negotiating team, said Jan O’Reilly, president of the Vista Teachers Association. Yesterday was a school holiday for the’ district.

Among a handful of issues, the two parties are at odds over how severe pay reductions should be for the 2010-11 fiscal year, which begins July 1.

The teachers union has agreed to take five furlough days a year beginning in July, but the two parties have disagreed on how long the furlough system should last, O’Reilly has said. The district has also wanted an additional 2 percent pay cut from teachers, something the union hasn’t supported.

School administrators have also proposed larger class sizes than the union is willing to accept.

Vista Unified, which enrolls nearly 23,000 students in kindergarten through the 12th grade, must cut about $18.3 million in expenses to balance its budget for the coming fiscal year. On Thursday, the school board is scheduled to consider eliminating more than 165 teaching positions, plus another 95 temporary and part-time teachers. That would represent a reduction in the teaching staff of about 20 percent, O’Reilly said.